Minnesota and Back

My little (5'11") baby sister Jeanna got married on Saturday! Mr. and Mrs. Craig and Jeanna Vaughn will be heading out on their honeymoon tomorrow, to a location that everyone knows, except for Jeanna. Ha ha! It was a good time, although there was of course lots going on, so it seemed like we were home for more like 3 1/2 hours than 3 1/2 days. Below is a picture of the happy couple before they left on their separate bachelor/ette parties. As it turned out, the two groups caught back up with each other a few times. None of our pictures from the wedding were particularly good, but I'm sure some exist, and I will find them.

Finn was a hit the whole weekend. He even went to bed for my Mom on Thursday night and Katie's Mom on Saturday night--Sheryl had come up just to see Finn and take care of him during and after the wedding reception. Thanks Sheryl! It was a fun reception and it was good to catch up with the extended family, including blog readers such as Pang and Milena, who are the SOs of my cousins Jim and Mike. My actual cousins probably don't read the blog. They're too busy thinking about their band.

Anyway, as I was saying, Finn was a popular guy. Everyone liked his little happy dance (which is the bath mat dance w/o the bath mat). Hopefully we can find a pic of him in his cute wedding outfit. White shirt, black vest and pants, red Chuck Taylor-style shoes. He was GREAT on the flight to MN, but got a little overtired and cranky on the flight back. Here he is below being snuggly on the flight to MN. We bought him his own seat, and now I think there is no going back. It was SO worth it.

Bathtub excitement

Finn's been getting a bit big for his baby tub, and he always has a blast in big tubs when we give him baths at other people's houses. Now that happy-outdoor-Murray has stopped peeing in our tub, we decided to try switching him to the main tub. We figured either a) he wouldn't notice the difference between tub and tub-in-tub, or b) he'd love it. Not so much. The first night he cried through his bath - this from the kid who usually giggles and splashes water all across the bathroom.

So the next day I stopped and picked him up a new mat for the bathtub. He LOVES it. Mostly, he loves to dance on it.

Bat(h)-Dance! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.
He also likes to get down on his belly and point at the various fish and bubbles ("bub-buh!").
Unfortunately, he got really sad when we moved it into the bathtub, panicked when we tried to put him in the water, and basically skipped his bath that night.

The next day (yesterday) I put him in the tub fully clothed at various times during the day, and there was more happy dancing, this time in the tub. I figured we were all set - we'd just do the same at bathtime, strip him there, and then turn on the water. No dice. When bathtime came, the tub was suddenly scary instead of fun, for no particular reason I could figure out. We even put his little tub back in and filled it up, but he wouldn't get in that, either. Apparently we've ruined bathtime.

We're leaving for Minnesota for Jeanna & Craig's wedding early tomorrow morning (6:25 am flight!), and hopefully after a few days in new and exciting tubs Finn will forget he was afraid of ours. In the meantime, who could get mad at this face?
More photos at Flickr, including adventures with yogurt and a giant spoon.

Learning in the kitchen

See the post below this one for the more important information!

Finn can maybe say about 15 things now. Some are ones that he'll just repeat, like "apple," but others he'll just say because he wants to, like "momma" and "hot." Today after breakfast we were walking in the kitchen, and he just said momma and left to go find her. He's getting pretty good at pointing out body parts. Here is some video I took on Sunday. He really likes tummies.


Finn chatting in the kitchen from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Big News

Hey, guess what! I'm due September 23. See that extended foot? That's mid-kick. He or she was very active during this ultrasound, and I think I'm in for another exciting third trimester once those are big enough to feel. So far, so good, though; other than some tiredness, I've been feeling just fine. No nausea or any of that good stuff.

Finn, of course, has no idea. He also didn't know it was St. Patrick's Day yesterday, and we didn't get any good St. Patty's photos this year, but here he is EATING green: some asparagus.

I know it looks like he doesn't like it, but seriously, he scarfed down the whole spear in about 10 seconds.

And Jonathan has video of him showing off some of his words that he's going to post as soon as he figures out how to open/edit it on his Mac. So stay tuned!

The Outdoorsy boys

If you know anything about our cats, you'll know that we've had terrible troubles with Murray peeing inappropriately around the house for about a year now. I wouldn't wish this problem and its associated stress on anyone. There have been many visits to the vet, many products have been purchased and used around the house (happy cat scent diffusers, anyone?), and many fliers were put up around town to try to entice someone to take him off of our hands. But alas, even the humane society wouldn't take him. It has been a mix of real medical problems (6+ months ago) and real annoying mental problems (the whole time). Alas, not even the "cat whisperer" we brought in could fix him.

We were at the end of our rope, and Murray was in all seriousness not long for this world. We had the final appointment made. The absolute last thing that we hadn't tried yet was just to kick him out of house and see how he did. Thanks for the suggestion, Sarah. In the past, we didn't want him to get lost and not come home, or get eaten by coyotes. But when it is that, or the other option, why the heck not? Well, after three weeks, things are going very well. Murray is outside now the vast majority of the day between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. and comes in to eat and sleep at night. When he's inside he is on his best behavior. He sticks to our yard or the one adjacent and spends a lot of time under the house. Katie snapped this picture below of Murray soaking up the sun. Anyway, so far, so good. Interesting, Mona shows no inclination to go outside. She likes having the house to herself.


Finn can now probably say about 15 words, include tough ones like raisin and apple. His favorites are still "hot" and "ball." He can point to his tummy and yours, or your nose, ears, and mouth. He has also taken a very personal interest in the cats and will follow them around the house or the yard, just yelling their names over and over. Maybe he thinks they're just ignoring him. I mean, they are, but what would he want them to do anyway? Now, the words Mona, Murray, momma, moo, and more, often sound quite similar, but the context helps. When he's outside yelling "Murr!" he sounds like he's got a Boston accent. (Murr! Murr! MUUURR!) Last week he also found this stick in the yard, and now it never leaves his side when he is out the door. The rainy season is past, so we are outside quite a bit now!

And he's started liking hats! I managed to convince him to be like daddy and wear his baseball cap last week, and since then he's really enjoyed it. And he looks SO CUTE!

So, I was gone last week

I'm on the science team for NASA's Kepler Mission. The point of the mission is to detect the transits (eclipses) of planets as they pass in front of their parent stars, in other solar systems. Kepler can see that. We should be able to find planets smaller than Earth. Kepler will stare at one patch of sky for at least 3 1/2 years, to monitor around 100,000 stars. We should be able to find Earth-sized planets in Earth-like orbits around Sun-like stars. Pretty amazing. I was down at Cape Canaveral / Cocoa Beach for team meetings and the launch, which was last Friday night. I also managed to take in a spring training game in Orlando. We were about 6 miles from the launch site, but here is a close-up image from NASA:

The mission is the brainchild of NASA Ames scientist Bill Borucki, who wrote his first paper about a space-based transit monitoring telescope in 1984. Yes, everything important from that decade really did happen in 1984. So this was a 25-year journey for Bill. After the launch there was a line of people waiting to get their picture taken with him. Actually, I was at the front of said line, but then others thought it was a good idea too. Note our limited edition "Kepler Science Team" hats. The takeaway message from the trip is that I owe Katie big-time!!! It was the longest I'd been away from Finn, and that was hard.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow...

That's when Jonathan gets back from Florida. Hooray!

Finn and I have done pretty well on our own this week, but I'm definitely looking forward to having Jonathan back. Sunday morning I am SLEEPING IN.

Few photos this week, but I have a video backlog, so here we go. First up, Finn and I hit the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum last Tuesday because it was too rainy for the park. Here he is at his favorite part, the giant soft blocks. We were there for 3 or 4 hours, after which I was absolutely exhausted. This Tuesday we went to hang out at Jessica and Caitlin's on Tuesday instead; he had just as much fun, and I still had enough energy to carry him to and from the tub at the end of the day. He played Ring Around the Rosey with Caitlin and me - didn't know exactly what was going on, but had a good time all the same (par for the course for him, I suppose).

Giant blocks from Katie on Vimeo.

Then last weekend, the day before Jonathan left, we checked out the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. Probably not worth that long of a drive very often, but we also stopped for cupcakes, so it was all good. The geese won the Finn's-favorite-animals prize due to their combination of a) size b) awakeness c) closeness to the fence. He liked them almost as much as he liked running up and down the bridge.

Geese and a bridge from Katie on Vimeo.

And here's one from tonight of him making elephant noises for the elephant Amy made him for his birthday. He likes it better when Jonathan and I do it, but isn't afraid to give it a go himself. Speaking of animal noises, he will now "moo" and "baa" sometimes when prompted at the appropriate point in "Old MacDonald," which is pretty awesome.

Elephant noises, aka spitting from Katie on Vimeo.

Some recent photos on Flickr.